The starting point of this thesis was, how to prepare nurses to provide sexual health care (SHC). The primary aim was to identify effective methods of teaching nurses to provide SHC by understanding nurses' behaviour. In the first two chapters, the nursing behviour 'provision of sexual healh care' was reviewed and investigated. The findings were used to make the focus of the thesis more circumscribed. A new aim was formlated, to develop a research-based nursing intervention for the provision of sexual teaching to patients. In chapters three to seven, the process and results of developing a sexual teaching intervention for the patient group women with gynaecologicial cancer were presented. As a result of first testing of the intervention, the limited use of this intervention in nursing practice was recommended. Also, specific suggestions for future research were made.